


Slipping

by ghuune



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Anger, Angry!Jensen, Angry!Misha, Angst, Cockles, Couple Fight, Hazing, M/M, Pranking, Shower Sex, angry!jared, big ass argument, generally a lot of suck in this one guys, talk about Destiel, the pie story, tinhat!verse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-11
Updated: 2016-03-11
Packaged: 2018-05-26 01:37:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6218515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghuune/pseuds/ghuune
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three narratives, braided together, that illustrate the stresses placed on Jensen by his love for his brother and Misha. This one's not fun, guys, which is why I posted the fluffy part first. The only thing I can tell you is, it will get better.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Slipping

I. JULY 16th, 2015: AFTER THE WRAP FOR THE SHOOTING OF “THE BAD SEED”  
Jensen climbed the steps of Misha's building, stopping at each rise to look back at the fence blocking the entrance to the courtyard. He patted his pocket for his cell phone, debated sending Mish a message to let him know he was here. Lost that debate. 

He knew this was a mistake, and he was making it anyway. 

He squinted up at Misha's apartment. His lights were on; his windows were open. Mish always left them open. He liked fresh air. He'd wedged a box fan in one of them, set between the ledge and the frame, the screen popped out. Mish rang the black funeral bell for at least three of those things every summer like that. This latest one looked like it was fixing to take the plunge any minute now. It made him smile.

The smile made up his mind, and he climbed the last of the stairs and stepped into the lobby.

His old arch-nemesis, the doorkeeper, skittered out from behind his desk, his posture coiled with wariness, as though Jensen were a robber in a ski mask instead of a tired man in a soft heather T.

“Mr. Krushnic does not wish to see you,” he said.

“Oh yeah?” Jensen asked. “Why don't you get, ah, Mr. Krushnic on down here'n let him speak for himself?”

“No need,” the doorkeeper said. “He said I was to ask for your key the next time I saw you. You're no longer welcome.”

Jensen waved that aside, even as his guts clenched. "Give me back my key" was way, way down there on the list of things he ever wanted to hear Mish say. “When'd he tell you that? Had to be four, five months ago. Damn, but you hold a memory prisoner, don't you? Call him.”

Had it been five months since he'd last been here? He guessed so. He and Mish had slipped since then, but at conventions, on set, not here. And was he standing here, knowing full well he meant to slip? 

Yes.

His jaw ached with clenching. He sucked in a breath and willed himself to relax. So the fossil wasn't going to let him up. That was fine. He fumbled for his cell.

The doorkeeper shot him a look of pure emnity. “Wait,” he said. 

He picked up the phone on his desk—-how quaint, it was an actual handset-—and dialed, glaring at him all the while. His eyes had either gotten runnier in the months since Jensen had last seen him, or else he'd simply forgotten how horrible they were. They reminded him of his mother's sick Persian cat.

“He's down here,” the doorkeeper said in a stage whisper, and Jensen snorted and swung around, scanning the ceiling. What was he in, some bad spy film? But he supposed he should take heart that 'he' was important enough to have his very own significant pronoun. Meant Mish didn't have some other boyfriend creeping around with whom 'he' might be confused. 

The doorkeeper sighed heavily. “If you're sure.” He said, without looking at him, “Mr. Krushnic said to send you up.”

“Of course he did,” Jensen said. 

The old man watched him with slitted eyes as he strode past the desk, his head swiveling like a Skeksi's on his long, wattled neck. Jensen had just watched that movie with JJ not too long ago, so the image was fresh in his mind.  
\---  
Mish must have heard his tread in the hall because he opened the door before he could knock, staring down at the floor, his throat working as he swallowed. Jensen leaned against the jamb. 

“Not gonna invite me in?” he asked, attempting charm.

“So now you're a vampire? That's bad news. I'd even say it... sucks.” The godawful pun startled a laugh out of him. Misha finally looked up and smiled. “Hello, Jen.”

The pet name threatened to take him out at the knees, and he entered the apartment with less grace than he would've liked, all but tripping over the lintel. Mish's grin grew bolder as he shut the door behind him. Cheeky little shit knew exactly.

He recovered himself and turned to face him, scuffing his feet on Mish's Persian hall runner. He'd been with him when he bought it from a street vendor, hefting the roll up on his shoulder as proudly as though he'd travelled seven deserts to fetch it. He'd regretted that, all right; they'd spent the rest of the day trading the stupid thing back and forth, Mish unwilling to backtrack to stow it in the car, convinced he'd miss some amazing part of the street fair if he did. 

Damn. He wasn't ready for Mish to be a memory. He stared at him, his hands curled loose at his sides, willing him to... something. Understand him, maybe. Read him, the way he used to.

Misha's smile died. He'd never looked so serious. His eyes were troubled as he palmed Jensen's jaw, thumb rasping over the stubble on his cheek.

“You know this isn't fair. To either of us.”

“Can't help it, Mish.”

Misha closed his eyes against the sound of his name. “Fuck!” he suddenly snarled.

II. MARCH 28th, 2014: IN MISHA'S TRAILER ON SET  
Jared and Misha were in each other's faces. 

He'd seen Jared pissed off before, of course, but Mish? That was a new one. The cords stood out on his neck as he bellowed over Jared, flushed red with veins standing out on his temples and forehead. 

The fight was about that stupid fandom ship, the Dean/Cas thing. Misha's fans had been agitating for it to go canon for months now. What had started as a simple ways-and-means discussion had, on a dime, turned into this.

“They're nothing but bullies and you need to get them in line!”

“I don't need to do jack shit. They have every right to ask for what they want!”

“Ask? Yes. Harrass, stalk, and dogpile? No! No one has the right to demand anything of the people who break their balls for this Show! Especially not some idiot girls who've worked themselves into a frenzy over a stupid, made-up fantasy!”

Misha bristled, and Jensen threw himself into the pause in an attempt to head off the inevitable. 

“Mish, think.” He spoke softly, a long-standing habit; the louder and more tense a situation got, the more he pulled back, but Misha swung around to face him all the same. “First of all, what the hell. The Show can't support a gay romance, it'd stick out like shoes on a snake. And second of all, the tactics your fans are using? They're rude. You've been egging this on---lemme finish---and it's high time you took some responsibility. They wouldn't have gotten their hopes up if not for you.”

“Oh, so because I took the time to talk to the fans about something they're passionate about, that's me egging them on.”

“I heard it, man,” Jensen said. He scrubbed his hands over his face, ran them through his hair. “'Just because we don't talk about it doesn't mean it's not true or not there,' or whatever you thought was a good idea to say. You don't think, Mish, and it's gone and bit you in the ass.”

Misha slashed his hand through the air and spun around, shaking his head. 

“Don't put your back to us!” Jared hadn't taken the opportunity to get himself in hand at all, Jensen noted, his stomach sinking. “You started this, and you have to deal with the consequences. You gotta tell them, tweet them, whatever, that this is not going to happen and that's that!”

III. APRIL 4th, 2014: DURING FILMING FOR “STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN.”  
It wasn't like Jared had taken him aside and said, “Let's make certain Misha doesn't get a line out today,” but Jensen soon realized that was the plan.

Guy Bee, the director, did nothing but murmur remonstrations over the intercom. Even Rosie, the camera guy, got in on it. And Jensen, of course, was right there, going along with it, even as his stomach knotted with anxiety. This thing had missed the “fun” exit three miles back. It was barrelling right down the hazing superhighway and picking up speed.

Sure, it had started out fun. They always messed with Misha's coverage—-it was cute, the way he crumpled—-but eventually Jared would relent and let him deliver his line, or some cosmic alignment would see him through a take without cracking. Not today, though. The only rule was Jared could not visibly mess with him—he couldn't, for example, swat him across the face—but everything else? Fair game. Since Mish was shooting a close-up, Jared was free to pinch his nipples, stand on his foot, drop to the floor and lick his calf, and he did all those things with glee. 

When Misha turned to Jensen for help, he leered and blew him a kiss. 

As Misha grew more and more frustrated, the set sank into a kind of hysteria. People drove down from the studio to laugh at him. Everyone knew someone should stop it. Everyone agreed it was somebody else's job. 

It was, in fact—-and Jensen knew this damned well—-his job. He was the only one with the same amount of clout as Jared, the only person Jared listened to. And yet, if he stepped in the middle of this thing, Jared would take that as a declaration of sides, not just in this, but in the Dean/Cas argument. The wounds from that fight were still bleeding.

And he was on Jared's side about that. As sweet as the fandom story was, in terms of the tone of the Show, it simply didn't have a place. Not only that, he wasn't even a tiny bit prepared for his entire family and hometown to watch him make out with Misha---God knows that would set the screen on fire if it happened. There was no way to even pretend like it wouldn't. And just... no. 

So, really, he had no other choice. Jared was on a mission to remind Misha of his place, and Jensen was there to help him.

I. JULY 16th, 2015  
They did it slow, ghosting touches, both afraid this frail bubble would pop, leaving bitter film behind. Mish was so open to him, Jensen felt echoes where he touched him. Stars in the night sky outside the open window, like grains of salt spilled on a black table. The sweat on their skin tasted like tears. 

II. MARCH 28th, 2014  
“There's the insightful and incisive textual analysis I've come to expect from you,” Mish sneered. He was being a contemptuous ass, and he ignored Jensen's warning glare. “Unlike some people, I pay attention to what the writers are doing. The fans are not making it up, they are not just women in wet panties, this thing is real, it's there, and it deserves our attention.”

“Fine!” Jared shouted. “Play into it, feed it if you want, but you make it clear, so help me God, that it's just you pandering, like always!”

Misha stepped into his space, his head thrown back to meet Jared's eyes. Jared glared down at him. 

Flat, controlled, Mish said, “Having the respect to hold an honest and direct dialogue with fans? Is not pandering. Go fuck yourself.”

“Nice mouth, asshole, and it is pandering when it's encouraging something that is never. Gonna. Happen.” 

“And why not? Because you don't want it?” 

“As a matter of fact, I don't, and don't even start,” Jared said. “It's got nothing to do with any of that special snowflake crap, it's to do with the fucking story. This thing you're talking about goes against everything this Show has been for nine years, Misha! You can't flush nine years' worth of characterization down the john just so you and Jay can fuck on camera. And---sorry, Jay, but I'll sooner go to Hell for real than watch you make a lovey-dovey fool of yourself in front of three million viewers.”

“Naw, man, I'm right there with you,” Jensen said, swallowing. “Mish, listen, this is our own damned fault, okay? You, for talking about it, and me, for.... Well, I know what I did. So the question isn't how do we make the whole Show about this. The question is, what can we do in terms of damage control to contain this thing without betraying the characters?”

He was trying to inject a note of sanity into the proceedings, but from the hurt, stunned look Misha threw him, he'd failed.

“So, to you, this is all just some big mistake,” he said, stuttering as though the words got stuck in his teeth.

III. APRIL 4th, 2014  
In all their long tradition of pranking Mish---which was really just the long tradition of messing with his coverage---they'd never been as relentless as this.

The only other time Jensen felt this bad was back in February, when Jared had nailed him with that pie. It wasn't even a pie, just a paper plate piled high with whipped cream, and Jared hid behind the door jamb when Mish, preoccupied with the ten thousand nagging little tasks of directing his first episode, walked through it. Jared didn't just pie him in the face: he drove that plate into him, through him, and he bloodied Misha's nose doing it. 

Jensen had known damned well it was going to happen. He'd known Jared wasn't going to be gentle, either. It wasn't a spoken thing between them, but when Jared had balanced the plate on his palm and told him his plan, he'd known Mish was gonna bleed.

The hell of it was Misha's smile, afterwards. He always smiled, but just because he smiled, did not mean he was happy. 

I. JULY 17th, 2015  
Birds singing in the tree outside Mish's open window woke him up. 

He'd forgot about the damned birds.

The breeze smelled of leaves. It diffused the funk of their lovemaking, the rubbery scent of lube and the plastic doll-skin smell of condoms. He hated condoms. He threw his leg over Misha's hips and nosed him in the ribs, sucked open-mouthed kisses on his nipple, up his neck, to his mouth, plunged his tongue inside.

“Mornin, handsome,” Mish murmured sleepily. Everything about him seemed too real, immediate, the scratch of his stubble, the taste of his mouth, which was... weird. Jensen was the royal crown prince of “go take a shower and brush your teeth,” but not today, apparently. They wore each other's scent, a thought that socked him right in the gut.

Against his better judgment, he said, “Don't make me go.” 

“Don't you shoot today?” 

Jensen snorted. “If I'm lucky.” 

That set Mish off. Jensen rained kisses down on his laughing face, laughing himself as he kissed his laughing mouth. Sudden tears welled up in his eyes and he broke away to watch the curtains ripple inwards on the breeze, fighting for control, because, crying? What the hell, man. The cracked shadows of branches played along the far wall, smoky gray, black where they intersected.

When he trusted his voice again, he said, “They gimme the day off after I wrap an ep. What about you?”

“Not today,” Mish said. “Early call tomorrow.”

Jensen rolled his head on the pillow to gaze at him, shagged out, his dark hair standing up in curving thorns, eyelids puffy, lower lip still swollen. Beautiful. 

“Do you want me to go?” 

Misha's eyes caught the light, turned some shade of blue he didn't have a name for. 

He bit his lips. “No... but I wish I did.”

II. MARCH 28th, 2014  
“Mistake's a harsh way of putting it,” Jensen said.

Jared snapped, “Call it what it is.”

“Unintentional side effect,” Jensen said, shooting his brother a quelling glance. 

“Whatever. It still doesn't belong in the Show,” Jared said. He paced, shaking off excess energy, and then spun and pointed at Misha. “Listen, Misha, I've been patient with this, but enough's enough. Time for some home truths. You play a side character. You turn up, and you help Sam and Dean, but this manipulative little game you're playing with the fans, to get more screen time, or whatever? It's a shitty thing to do to them, it's a shitty thing to do to us, and it's going to ruin things for everybody, so I'm telling you, right now, in no uncertain terms: knock it the fuck off.”

“I like how, in this paranoid fantasy, I'm some kind of devious mastermind,” Misha said, eyes almost black with anger. “Hate to break it to you, but no. I've just been honest with them about what I think, and I have that right, you sonuvabitch. You two are the ones who dance around and lie whenever the issue comes up.”

“Because what the hell are we supposed to say?” Jared asked, throwing his arms wide. “'Get a grip, you delusional twits?' Yeah, that'd go over great, Misha!”

“Let's talk about something else. Like, what are you so insecure about, you big baby? Do you really think if this happened, it'd somehow kick you off your own damned Show? Turn the thing into triple-x gay porn? Just what hell are you so afraid of, Jared?”

“I'm insecure? I'm afraid? You're after something that doesn't fit, Misha! Just like you've never fit! Just like your character hasn't fit for the last two years!”

“Whoa,” Jensen said, holding up a hand. Jared had this thing he did—he didn't mean it, he couldn't help it—but once he got mad enough, he started scissoring bits of flesh off people. He said things that hurt, not things that were true. 

Misha waved Jensen off, his lips curled back from his teeth in an angry snarl. “He obviously has something to say to me, so let's hear it.”

“I just said it,” Jared said, breathing heavily. “You could walk off this Show and out of our lives and nothing would be different. You aren't nearly as important as you think you are, Misha.”

“All right, all right, put the brakes on your mouth,” Jensen said. “Misha's family. We don't talk like that to family.”'

Misha slashed his hand through the air again. “I'm not part of his family---”

“---Damn straight you're not, you unctuous prick---”

“---so he can say whatever the fuck he wants, and did you just call me an unctuous---”

“Both of you! Enough!” Jensen roared.

His voice echoed off the walls of the trailer into the ringing silence. All three of them were breathing hard.

Jared turned his back on them. “I'm done.”

“He's right,” Jensen said. “This's getting a little too heated.”

Misha made a visible effort to get himself together and carefully said, “This isn't gonna go away just because we ignore it. We need to deal with this as a united front.”

Jared whipped around to scream, “A united front?”

Jensen found himself between the two men, shouting, “Jared, calm down! Both of you, back off!”

He held them apart, darting glances between them. “This thing ain't gonna happen,” he said to Jared, a thread of reassurance in his voice. He glanced at Misha. “Two against one, Mish, you ain't gonna win it. Now we obviously can't talk about this like rational people, so I vote we drop it.”

Misha opened his mouth, but clacked it shut when Jensen glared. “We're dropping it,” he said to him. “It's not our business. We're just actors,” he said to Jared. “Whether it happens or not, that's up to the guys down south. We're not gonna change a damned thing by screaming at each other, all right?” 

He pushed Jared's chest a little. “Walk it off, brother. C'mon, move those feet.” 

Jared still glared at Misha, but he no longer looked as though he were about to go for him, which was all Jensen wanted. He dove out of the trailer, slammed the door behind him. It was a flimsy door and it clattered sadly on its jamb, not a satisfying boom at all.

“A mistake,” Misha said, slipping out from beneath Jensen's hand.

“Kept you from getting your teeth knocked in, so... you're welcome.”

Without looking at him, Misha said, “Yeah, thanks. I think I'd've preferred the punch in the mouth, to be honest. Get the fuck out of here, Jensen. Go find Jared. Smooth him out.”

III. APRIL 4th, 2014  
Misha opened his door for him, though Jensen didn't know why. He slumped through it, hangdog and miserable. 

“Mish,” he started, then stopped. What could he possibly say? 

When Misha came up to him during the lunch break, maybe looking for an explanation, maybe for some reassurance, he didn't even acknowledge him, just carried on his conversation with Jared like he wasn't even there. That was when the penny dropped; Jensen had felt his flinch. Yeah, he'd had a plan, and that plan was to let Jared know he was on his side, so Jared would let go of his anger. The way he'd had to execute it, though, left a taste in his mouth like he'd been chowing on cow patties. 

Why in the hell had Mish opened his door? 

Misha smiled at him, but Jensen was well-versed in the language of his smiles, and this was not a happy one. 

“Jen,” he said, mocking him.

“Dude,” he said. “You should've answered that door with a punch to my face.”

Misha raised his eyebrow. “Not that I'd ever sink that low, but you're not wrong.”

“I'm sorry, man,” he said. “I am really, really sorry. What happened today wasn't cool, I--”

“Stop babbling,” Misha said. “You want some tea? I'm having tea.”

He would be, wouldn't he? They'd made him blow so many takes, his throat was probably ripped to shreds. Jensen sank into one of the slouchy old chairs around the small table Misha used for tea. He picked them up at flea markets and thrift stores, a completely random assortment: a reading chair upholstered in blue velvet; a low, overstuffed loveseat in a pattern of faded pink cabbage roses; a green-striped cream-colored armchair; a yellow stool. Misha took the stool, hunched over a steaming mug of tea.

Jensen squeezed honey into his and dragged the tea bag through the hot water. Dark orange tannin bloomed, leaving a trail behind like a comet.

Misha regarded him, his expression carefully blank.

“Do you want me off the Show?” he asked. 

Jensen flinched. “What? No! God, Mish!”

“I've been considering it. It'd solve a lot of problems,” he said. “Jared doesn't talk about it, but this thing with us bothers him, and you know it. And Destiel? That's one hundred percent on us; you were right about that.” He shook his head. “Listen to me, making excuses like a coward. It's me, Jen. I divide people. I divide the fans, and I'm dividing you and Jared.”

“That's for us to worry about, though.”

“I'd think so, if you didn't need each other so much.” Misha glanced at him, careful, blank. He was like a white wall. “I'm starting to think my presence on the show is hurting you, and that's not okay by me anymore.”

“Is this because of today? Because of the way we acted?” 

He shook his head. “I've been thinking about this for awhile.”

Jensen reached across the table for him, but Misha, staring down into his tea, pretended not to notice. He drew back. “You know Jared. He's an emotional guy. Just tell the fans what they need to hear, and he'll be fine.”

“No,” Misha said. “I'm not going to lie to them.”

“What lie?” His anger was rising again. He beat it back. “You take all of... us... off the screen, and the writing doesn't support this Destiel thing at all, Mish. What you're talking about would make us the Show.”

“I don't understand why you can't separate acting Dean in love from being yourself in love.”

“Because Dean, at least so far as I understand him, is not in love with Cas!” Jensen sipped his tea so he wouldn't be tempted to thunk the mug down as punctuation. “He _loves_ Cas,” he said. “He loves Cas the same way I love Jared. They're battle-tested, brothers in arms, but Dean doesn't stroke it to the angel in the bathroom. You take me, looking at you, out of it, and I just don't see it in the writing, man. I'm sorry.”

Misha nodded. “Okay,” he said. “That's fair.” He grimaced as he squeezed more honey in his tea. “So you're saying, if this happened, you'd have to be you, in love with me, and you don't want that.”

“Not on screen!” Jensen heard the wrung-out echoes of his voice. “Not for the whole world to see, Mish.”

“I'd never ask that of you,” he said. 

“But it doesn't change your mind,” Jensen said, staring into his eyes. He was still walled off; he couldn't read what was going on inside that head, and it drove him nuts. His head ached. He wanted to kick off the chair and pace, but he controlled himself. “D'you wanna leave me, Mish?”

Misha rolled his eyes. “Don't be a drama queen, Jensen. Jesus. I'm talking about leaving the Show, not you. If there's not going to be anything between Dean and Cas, Cas doesn't have a damn thing to do, and you and I both know it.”

“You give us time off,” Jensen said, grinning.

“Dickbag,” Misha said without heat. 

They were silent for a moment, stirring honey in their tea, sipping it, both gazing off into middle distance. 

“So, this whole thing is about you being bored. You think some new role would be more interesting. Is that about the long and the short of it?”

Misha's mobile mouth flattened in a frown. “It's just an idea. I don't know. They don't put us in scenes together, they don't give me anything interesting to do, and the whole time I'm there, bored off my ass, I'm pissing off psychopaths who only want to see you and Jared, and I'm pissing off my fans, too.... Sure, the money's good—pays for Random Acts, lets me raise my kids. To be honest, that's the only reason I'm still around. That, and the fact that I do see the set-up for the... thing which will not be named.”

Jensen exhaled. That was a hard punch of truth Misha had just served. No wonder the man didn't fist-fight. He didn't need to.

“Well, at least now I know why you're so fired-up about it.” He reached across the table again, and this time Misha rested his hand on his forearm and looked him in the eyes. The expression in them hurt.

“I'll try to get you more to do,” Jensen said. “Something good. Just... please don't leave, okay?” He tipped his head. “I don't think threatening to quit the Show to get you your job back would work a second time.”

“When the hell did that happen?” Misha asked, lost, and Jensen choked on his tea.

Right.... He'd never told him about that, had he? 

Whoops.

I. JULY 17th, 2015  
They didn't actually manage to leave the apartment that day, or even the bedroom, really. Sometime around noon, they ordered Chinese and Misha threw on a pair of boxers to accept the bags from the delivery guy, and they ate it sitting Indian style on the messy bed like teenagers, watching bad daytime talk shows and laughing at the guests.

They messed around, starting and stopping, kisses that lasted for what seemed like days. They washed their sex off under the shower's spray and Misha had him up against the wall, Jensen's hands slipping on the smooth white tiles, and as he came, stars exploding behind his eyes, he never, ever wanted to leave.


End file.
